For geopolitical analyses go to THE INDICTER Magazine [theindicter.com]. The Professors' Blog, founded 2005, is Sweden's earliest blog written by univerisity professors (In Swedish: "professorsblogg"). Founded by Prof. Marcello Ferrada de Noli Ph.D. (Med. dr. i psykiatri, Karolinska Institutet) Professor Em. Epidemiology. Prof. de Filosofía. Former Research Fellow & Lecturer in Social Medicine, Harvard Medical School

Analysis: Snowden document reveals Swedish prosecution of Assange was requested by the U.S.

It emerges now clearer that the “Assange prosecution-case” might have simply been a request from the US government. The Intercept exposures help to explain partly the incongruousness of the case itself; the absurdities and extemporaneousness of the accusations and the disproportional legal procedures such as the European Arrest Warrant issued by a Swedish prosecutor against Julian Assange. On the other hand it explains why the Swedish prosecutor cannot afford to finish the interrogation, as the public would realize that there has never been a legal base for re-initiating such prosecution.It would be fair to conclude that the above constitutes a genuine reason (behind the excuse-finding series produced) for the “juridical” protracting of the case.

By Prof. Marcello Ferrada de Noli

Image above: Julian Assange interviewed by CNN declared, according the Spanish edition of CNN, that the investigation against him because of filtrating information regarded as classified by the US government continues, and under a prosecutor of the District of Virginia. See details further below.

Contents:

Introduction – 1. The Intercept exposures and Swedish collaboration with the US – 2. The revealing silence on The Intercept revelations from the part of the Swedish authorities and media – 3. The extent of a geopolitical servitude. 4. Conclusion.

Introduction

Those following the Swedish case VS. Assange in the international forum would have to admit that, after nearly four years, the debate is still futilely devoted to “the legal aspects” of the case. The discussion has been made up from the beginning around “technical” arguments, and where court verdicts or utterances of legal folks have been paramount attraction. As an illustration, the Swedish online forum Flashback, mainly dealing around such legal aspects, has produced up to now nearly sixty thousand comments (N= 59 257) that have been viewed nearly six million times (N= 5 723 806). And from the part of the Swedish press, the only opinion articles accepted for publication on WikiLeaks or its founder Julian Assange are those bound to contribute to the “legal discussion”, hence, towards the ever blowing smoke-curtain encouraged to hide the real case.

My position is instead: there is not such a “legal case”; it has never been. Plainly: there is not legal ground for a prosecution of Assange in Sweden on the base of the alleged behaviours. Arguments from the part of the Swedish prosecutors in the form of vague insinuations of “undisclosed” reasons for pursuing the issue of an interrogation with Assange (at the same time that they neglect carrying out such interrogation in London) emerges after four years as a pure and simple bluff. And this bluff shall be certainly exposed if an interrogation ever is to be performed. Ergo, the case is postponed indefinitely.

Which in turn is the reason explaining why the prosecutor has first neglected such interrogation while Assange was still in Sweden, and the afterwards deferring of the interrogation by the prosecutor while Assange has remained in London.

Instead, towards a breaking of the stalemate in the Case Assange (March 2014), it would be highly convenient ­to shift the main attention from the legal technicalities­ to the political contexts of the case. After all, such “the legal technicalities­” actually refer to a non-existing “legal case”. For in the main, the Swedish case VS. Assange is political, and instead it has meant all the way, from its origins, to disrupt the publishing endeavour of the anti-secret organization WikiLeaks.

It emerges now clearer that the “Assange prosecution-case” might have simply been a request from the US government (See below on The Intercept exposures). This helps to explain partly the incongruousness of the case itself; the absurdities and extemporaneousness of the accusations, the flaw “police interrogations”, the disproportional measures adopted by the prosecutor which “re-opened” the case on a request by a known politician, [1] etc.

On the other hand it explains the “impossible situation” of the Swedish prosecution authority. The Swedish prosecutor cannot afford to finish the interrogation, now under the world scrutiny, because the bluff would be exposed, as the public would realize that there has never been a legal base for re-initiating such prosecution. The same case, with the same background of no-evidence, was indeed dismissed by Chief-Prosecutor Eva Finné in 2010. And after four years there is nothing new in the “evidence” front.

It would be fair to conclude that the above constitutes the genuine reason (behind the excuse-finding series produced) for the “juridical” protracting of the case. Principally, the above political request also provides a rationale for the bogus European Arresting Warrant issued nominally by Chief Prosecutor Marianne Ny and publicly defended by Prosecutor-General Anders Perklev; as it is explained elsewhere, [2]thereal target of that EAW was not the detention of Assange, but the creation of an extradition process leading to the subsequent stalemate of the case and the immobilization of the WikiLeaks founder.

1. The Intercept exposures and the Swedish collaboration with the US Department of Justice

Documents exposed by Glenn Greenwald and Ryan Gallagher (The Intercept, 18 February 2014) [3] on US efforts to get Assange prosecuted by allies elsewhere, confirm to a great extent main theses that I have put forward on the Assange case since December 2010 and onwards.

Although the Greenwald & Gallagher revelations in those regards are not new (for the same information has been released on at lest two occasions in 2010, see below), this new actualization has deserved widespread attention. Partly, for the information it was ascribed to Edward Snowden documents, and partly because it comes almost simultaneously with the publication by Alexa O’Brien (17 February 2014) of a tdocumentation she obtained, pointing to the US preparations for indicting Assange and WikiLeaks.[4]

Summarizing the exposed issue with Kevin Gosztolas headline in The Dissident; [5]

Accurately, the Snowden document referred by Kevin Gosztolas stated the following (the full document has not been available, to the best of my knowledge; the excerpt is contained in the above referred article by Greenwald & Gallagher):

“The United States on 10 August urged other nations with forces in Afghanistan, including Australia, United Kingdom and Germany, to consider filing criminal charges against Julian Assange, founder of the rogue WikiLeaks Internet website and responsible for the unauthorized publication of over 70,000 classified documents covering the war in Afghanistan. The documents may have been provided to WikiLeaks by Army Private First Class Bradley Manning. The appeal exemplifies the start of an international effort to focus the legal element of national power upon non-state actor Assange and the human network that supports WikiLeaks.”

It should be clarified, as also is stated in The Intercept article, that findings refers to an early publication, or “scoop”, done by Philip Shenon, former NYT investigative reporter. He published his report on US urging allies hounding Julian Assange and WikiLeaks already on the 10 of June 2010, in the Dailybeast.[6] Here below my comments on the Shenon & Intercept revelations.

A) The first thing striking me was that the communication in which the US government urged certain countries to initiate a prosecuting against Assange was directed to “other nations (than the us) with forces in Afghanistan”. Ergo, this includes Sweden, unmistakably.

This is an item not been highlighted by the above-cited articles of Greenwald & Gallagher, or Gosztolas, or by the article reproducing the interviews of Michael Ratner, President Emeritus of the Centre for Constitutional Rights on the recent exposures based on the Edward Snowden documents.[7]

In fact, the press secretary of the Swedish Foreign Office, Anders Jörle, was asked by that time (8 September 2010) whether they have been contacted by the US on the stance Sweden should be held about WikiLeaks. Most interesting I that the answer provided by the Foreign Office representative did NOT deny a contact from the US government’s on any such request to Sweden. He only said that no contact has been carried out on the issue between USA and officials the Swedish Foreign ministry “through the official channels”.

The said interview was conducted by Expressen’s journalist Oscar Joulander and published on September 8th, 2010. I quote from the Expressen’s report:

“They have not been in contact with us through the official channels in Stockholm or at the embassy in Washington”, says the Foreign Office spokesman Anders Jörle”.[8]

But this is exactly what WikiLeaks denounced in the Diplomatic Cables on Sweden: that the contacts on matters of Intelligence operations between the US Government and the officials at both the Swedish ministries of Justice and of Foreign Affairs were conducted “in secret”, and even hidden from the Parliament.

In the context, we shall consider that Sweden represent for the US government the staunchest ally in Europe (together with he UK) in that kind of operations. Regarding which countries are “closest allies” in Intelligence operations is not any longer a guessing. They were exposed initially as the “Five eyes” countries. However, some moths ago it emerged that Sweden has been in fact the secretly closest collaborationist European country of the Bush and Obama government. Sweden has during last times repeatedly been referred in the international media as to “the Sixth Eye” of the SIGINT alliance under US command.[9]

B) The second aspect being that this request to these countries (including Sweden) was put forward on the 10 of august 2010. It would be enough for the reader to check the document “affidavit of Julian Paul Assange” to realize the timing of the request from the US to Sweden and the timeline of its implementation.

It is well known that on the 20 of August, only ten days after the above-referred date, Expressen published the “scoop” that Assange has been “arrested for rape”. Expressen interviewed Maria Häljebo Kjellstrand, the Swedish prosecutor that had issued the arresting order, and quotes:

But what is less known, in fact, to the best of my knowledge never been mentioned before in the debate, is what journalist Emanuel Karlsten “anticipated” in his article in the same issue of Expressen on that 20 of August:

“Internet is boiling with rumours that the US government is exercising pressure on its allies to arrest Assange. Departing from that, and from this notification (the Swedish prosecutor arrest order) I assume that it will be extensively conspired about that CIA finally has managed to infiltrate even the Swedish authorities.” [11]

Well, who was really conspiring on the 10 of August 2010?

C) The third relevant aspect being that charges were asked to be filed against “the founder of WikiLeaks Julian Assange”.

That was the case all along, that the Swedish prosecution (the “accusations”) was initiated under request because Assange was the founder of WikiLeaks, and for the “damage” WikiLeaks had infringed to NATO interest and in particular in exposing the secret agreements between the US government and “neutral” Sweden. In fact, these were the first words I published on the case Assange back in in 2010: [12]

“As the detention of Julian Assange is now implemented on behalf of Sweden, it would be necessary to clarify some issues for non-Swedish speaking audiences. Possible equivocal terms based on direct translations of Swedish dispatches may refer not only to the Swedish case against Assange, but also on the responsibility of Swedish authorities in the production of the aggravating secret agreements with American Intelligence services and that were exposed in the diplomatic documents leaked by Assange’s organization.”

The media strategists of the requested operation skilfully mastered the item. They managed to revert its presentation by appealing to a false notion of “all equal under the law”. Meaning, “just because he is a celebrity he will not be excused”. Another trick engulfed by the Swedish public, which did not realize that it was exactly the opposite. It was because Assange is the WikiLeaks forerunner and indicated as main responsible of the exposures.

Further, no one has cared to statistically examining the prevalence of such “legal measures” from the part of the Swedish authorities among a cohort of average Swedes accused of similar behaviours, cases with about the same degree of “evidence” or personal-affective motivation behind, as it is purported being the case “of the two women” accusations against Assange.

But it is also an item I have been insisting in clarifying all along. That we should not let pass uncontested that the case against Assange is presented at the media divorcing “the person Assange” from the fact he is the founder and forerunner figure of WikiLeaks. This is a mistake also contained in several interventions from the part of WikiLeaks supporters, who unfortunately did not realise it was part of the smear-accusation strategy. That has been the strategy assayed by Swedish journalists and in general among the Anglo-Saxon media, separate “Assange” from “Wikileaks”, a mantra still going strong in the social media particularly Twitter.

All this, but principally the above-mentioned revelations done by Alexa O’Brien, would bring support to the hypothesis defended in these columns (the “stalling hypothesis”) about the protracting of the case from the part of Sweden in order to allow the completion of the indictment in preparation in the US against Julian Assange and WikiLeaks. In other words, the findings by O’Brien also indicate the real nature of the Swedish case VS. Assange, as she clearly demonstrates that US investigation of WikiLeaks is now entering its 5th year. Among the findings of O’Brien:

“Other recently released emails reveal that the three and a half year old Department of Justice grand jury probe was already empaneled on September 23, 2010, two months before the Attorney General publicly acknowledged an ongoing U.S. criminal investigation of WikiLeaks and Julian Assange.” [13]

Why selecting Sweden for the Assange op?

One answer could be found in the content of the first reports from Fox TV, the Daily Telegraph, etc., back in 2010-2011. Those reports nearly highlighted that Sweden is “neutral”, and expressly anticipate the argument around these terms, “it is inconceivable that a neutral country like Sweden, and which remained neutral during the Second World War, would be doing this on orders of another country.” In other terms, the image Sweden as a neutral country would show the “objectivity” of the accusations and the subsequent State-sponsored arresting warrants and extradition requests. But the image of a “neutral Sweden” was deceitful, as demonstrated by the facts exposed in the 2011 article “Sweden, NATO and Assange”, [14] answering to Clarie Harvey’s piece in Daily Telegraph. [15]

2. The revealing silence on The Intercept revelations from the part of the Swedish authorities and media.

After about a week of the Intercept scoop, particularly when the item concerning WikiLeaks and Assange has been referred in principal international media outlets, not a single word had been uttered by the Swedish press or broadcasting services, public or private. This, considering that according to Google, the item referred by the scoop of Greenwald & Gallagher to Assange and Wikileaks in conjunction to “prosecution”, has been referred 402 000 times on the Web so far in the referred time-lapse. [16]

The scandalous touch is given by SvD. The paper is running today (23 of February) an extensive article in the Culture section precisely on the theme of Edward Snowden’s exposures and in the main context of The Guardian journalist Luke Harding’s book ”The Snowden files”. The title is even headed “A matchless reportage on Snowden and the scoop of all times”.[17] The article even reports expressly the launching of The Intercept, “completely aimed at exposures based on the Snowden documents”. But WikiLeaks is only mentioned in the article as an organization once despised by Snowden; and Greenwald is only portrayed as a bitter journalist “irritated that Harding has stolen his scoop”. And about the WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange as a target for international prosecution as described in that launching of The Intercept? Not a word.

It is not believable that the Swedish media would not consider relevant to Sweden, if not highly relevant, the revelations done by Glenn Greenwald and Ryan Gallagher in The Intercept. I will first explain this relevancy for the Swedish scenario. Then I will enumerate some central myths cultivated by the Swedish authorities, the Swedish legal system and their servant media about Assange and the “legal case”. For in these behaviors is to found the real reasons why the media is absolutely mute about the last Snowden revelations. For it exposes the bluff.

3. Conclusion.

The US government approached Sweden’s authorities on the situation around Julian Assange and the WikiLeaks exposures of 2010, in August that year. The Swedish press reported on the meetings in Stockholm. Secondly, as reported in both the Phillip Shenon and NSA documents (the report by Greenwald & Gallagher in Intercept), the US contacted all countries with forces in Afghanistan with the request to initiate prosecution against the WikiLeaks founder. As being Sweden a principal country participating with military troops in Afghanistan, it is beyond discussion as to whether Sweden was also among the nations contacted by the US for that purpose. My conclusion being that it is highly likely that the reopening of the “case Assange” by Swedish authorities on the 20 of August 2010 was part of the US request of the 10 of August to prosecute Julian Assange by any means.

The US government approached Sweden’s authorities on the situation around Julian Assange and the WikiLeaks exposures of 2010, in August that year. The Swedish press reported on the meetings in Stockholm. Secondly, as reported in both the Phillip Shenon and NSA documents (the report by Greenwald & Gallagher in Intercept), the US contacted all countries with forces in Afghanistan with the request to initiate prosecution against the WikiLeaks founder. As being Sweden a principal country participating with military troops in Afghanistan, it is beyond discussion as to whether Sweden was also among the nations contacted by the US for that purpose. My conclusion being that it is highly likely that the reopening of the “case Assange” by Swedish authorities on the 20 of August 2010 was part of the US request of the 10 of August to prosecute Julian Assange by any means.

But it is not only a design to simply “prosecute Assange”. The meaning of the strategic design in the context of the referred US request was not Assange as person, but the concept was (is) to immobilize WikiLeaks. For this a long protracted process had to be brought in place.

Follows a sequence around the European Arrest Warrant issues by the Swedish prosecutor against Julian Assange,[21] and where the conclusion emerging is that the real target of the EAW was not the detention of Assange, but the creation of an extradition process:

Assange arrived to the airport around noon, and even chosen to change to a later SAS flight of his preferences. He finally left Arlanda Airport for Berlin Tegel at 17.15. Latest around 16.55 he would have gone through airport security where, with the usual heavy police presence, staff at the gate leading to the departure hall checked his passport (if not already checked at the desk), boarding card, etc. Besides, the police have all the passengers’ lists in advance.

According to the prosecutor office in Gothenburg, Assange was “detained in absentia” already at 14.15 on 27 September 2010. [24] Normally, such order goes to all police units in the country. Why wasn’t he detained at the airport? It could not be that they missed his identity. Quite the opposite: because they knew his identity at the airport desk or at the control gate, the police (or government officials, or whoever agency was operating) managed to take the laptops from Assange’s checked-in suitcase. [22] Besides, he stayed around five hours at the airport’s premises. They just couldn’t have missed him.

Assange was never informed about the “detention in absentia”. Further, Assange’s laywer Björn Hurtig had obtained an agreement from the prosecutor Marianne Ny that Julian Assange “was free to leave Sweden”. [23]

In fact, Assange’s lawyer received the communication on the “detention warrant” issued my Marianne Ny (the warrant that Elisabeth Massi Fritz is writing about in connection to Assange’s departure for Berlin on the 27 of September), as late as the 30 September 2010. This means three days after that it was issued by the same Marianne Ny.

In support of this claim I refer here to the Supreme Court document “Agreed Statement of Facts And Issues. Between: Julian Paul Assange (Applicant) V. Swedish Prosecution Authority (Respondent)”, hearings 1-2 Feb 2012,. In Item 17, page 5, it reads: “On 30th September 2010, the Appellant’s counsel [Björn Hurtig] was advised of the existence of the arrest warrant.”

The EAW immobilized Assange and, to a greater extent, WikiLeaks’ activities. In previous analyses, I have demonstrated that it is beyond doubt that this case is political motivated. There isn’t a genuine legal case behind the charade of the Swedish Prosecutor Authority and the plaintiff’s prejudiced lawyers. This is not the first time that this sort of behaviour has been seen in Sweden.

What would have happened if Assange had been detained at the airport? The prosecutor would have had to interrogate Assange within a few hours. Assange would have requested the presence of a lawyer or that the interview was videotaped. Afterwards he would have been released, because in terms of the evidence available to the prosecutor, there would have been nothing new that had not already come up in the preliminary investigation, conducted by prosecutor Finne (who had previously dismissed the case on this evidence). He would have never been held incommunicado, as he will certainly be if he comes to Sweden under the extradition terms that resulted from the EAW.

Only the EAW could have produced the political benefits created by this scenario, which enables a prolongation of Assange’s prisoner status. My “stalling-the-process hypothesis” [24] was correct from the start.

In view of the above, I found strange that in the last reports on the Edward Snowden documents in reference to Assange and WikiLeaks, Sweden is omitted when referring possible countries that would have received the reported request from the US government to pursue a prosecution against Julian Assange in August 2010. I have not found the Swedish-connection in any of the different interviews or articles dealing with the report by Greenwald and Gallagher in The Intercept. Neither these authors make any allusion to the actual prosecution efforts initiated by Sweden precisely around the given date of 10 of August 2010, as given in The Intercept cited documents.

In an interview given by Michael Ratner, Assange’s lawyer in the US, concretely he declared in commenting the findings by Greenwald and Gallagher in The Intercept:

“And what the substance of it is it says that we have to make an effort to get Julian Assange prosecuted everywhere in the world. And at that point they pointed to four, maybe five countries–the United Kingdom, Germany, Australia, the U.S., Iceland. Those are the countries that are going to go after him in. And, obviously, there are other countries added as they go along.” [25] [28]

In fact, among all the countries assisting NATO with forces in Afghanistan, it was only Sweden that initiated a prosecution against Julian Assange. This, implemented in a case reopened just days after the US request to allies in Afghanistan, as mentioned in The Intercept report of 17 February 2014, based on the Edward Snowden documents.

References and Notes

[1] Politician Claes Borgström shared the same radical ideological agenda on gender-related legislation than the prosecutor that re-opened the case on his request. See details in chapter “Duckpond In Swedish Legal System”, Part V in this book.

[7] ”Documents Reveal NSA and GCHQ Efforts to Destroy Assange and Track Wikileaks Supporters” Interview transcript by Anton Woronczuk. Truthout, 21 Feb 2011. Michael Ratner (President Emeritus of the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) in New York and Chair of the European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights in Berlin) says: “And what the substance of it is is it says that we have to make an effort to get Julian Assange prosecuted everywhere in the world. And at that point they pointed to four, maybe five countries–the United Kingdom, Germany, Australia, the U.S., Iceland. Those are the countries that are going to go after him in. And, obviously, there are other countries added as they go along.”

[9]“Sweden’s Intelligence Agency has Access to NSA’s XKeyscore system”. Info Security Magazine, 12 December 2013: “Sweden has sometimes been called the ‘Sixth Eye’ – referring to the English-speaking Five Eyes SIGINT alliance – suggesting a close working relationship between Sweden’s FRA and the NSA and GCHQ. New documents suggest that it has access to the XKeyscore tool, and has helped in the Quantum hacking program.”

“On 14th September 2010, the Appellant’s counsel enquired in writing as to whether the Appellant was permitted to leave Sweden. On 15th September 2010, the prosecutor informed the Appellant’s counsel that he was free to leave Sweden.”

The “Julian Paul Affidavit” refers also in No 4, “Extended stay in Sweden”, Item 113, “My lawyer in Sweden Bjorn Hurtig obtained an agreement from the prosecutor Marianne Ny that I was free to leave Sweden. I left Sweden on 27 September 2010.”

[24]See Chapter “Timing The Processes.Explaining Sweden’s Reluctance To Conduct Assange’s Interrogation In London”. In Part I in this book.